nepal  Mohamed Othman Shahween is Saudi Arabia’s top 1,500-meter runner, and he recently was introduced to the newest member of the Saudi Olympic team in London: 19-year-old Sarah Attar, who will run the 800 meters Wednesday morning.

Attar was born, raised and schooled in Escondido. Her mother is American, and she has U.S. citizenship. She is an art major at Pepperdine, a Christian university perched on the Malibu hills above beaches regularly full of bikini-clad women. She runs for the Waves’ cross country and track team in tight shorts and a tank top. She regularly interacts with unfamiliar men and doesn’t travel with a male chaperon.

But at London’s Opening Ceremony on July 27, she wore a black headscarf and a full-length black robe, and she dutifully walked behind the men in the Saudi delegation. She reportedly is not living at the Athletes Village. She is expected to wear some sort of head garment and full-body covering when she takes the track Wednesday at 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium for the 800-meter preliminaries.

“There are 22 million Muslims in Saudi Arabia. I am representing them,” Shahween said. “She is representing them, too. For these two weeks, she must be in that system.”

It is a system Attar may change no matter how badly she is beaten in an event she hasn’t run since high school. She will become the second Saudi woman to compete at an Olympics — Wojdan Shahrkhani in judo was the first Friday — from the Muslim kingdom that essentially prohibits women from participating in sports at any level.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei were the only nations among the 204 at the 2008 Olympics that didn’t bring women’s athletes. After intense international pressure and threats of barring their male athletes, Qatar and Brunei relented. Qatar even chose a female shooter as its flag bearer for the Opening Ceremony.

That left Saudi Arabia, which waited until July 12 to name Attar and Shahrkhani. It also stipulated that both women would abide by strict Sharia law, meaning they would compete with headscarves, could not mingle with unknown men and must be accompanied in public by a male guardian.

In addition, Pepperdine was asked to purge all photos of Attar not wearing Muslim attire from its website, which pretty much meant all of them (including team pictures where she is standing in the back). When the West Coast Conference posted an online story about Attar’s selection to the Olympics, it included a photo of her running cross country; a few hours later it, too, was removed.

“It is certainly an advance for Saudi women that they can see the government has allowed women to compete under the Saudi flag at the Olympics,” said Minky Worden, the director of global initiative for Human Rights Watch, which led the campaign. “People should cheer Sarah Attar but not forget the millions of girls within Saudi Arabia who cannot take part in meaningful sport.

“The battle does not end with her race. It’s only just beginning.”

Attar and Shahrkhani’s selection instantly sparked criticism from hard-line conservatives across Saudi Arabia, where state-controlled media has barely covered their story. A Twitter campaign in Arabic was launched under the heading, “prostitutes of the Olympics.” Attar’s family told friends that there was concern for the safety of relatives living in Saudi Arabia.

Neither woman formally qualified for the Games, but the International Olympic Committee allows countries to bring a small number of athletes anyway under its universality clause.

Shahrkhani was noticeably outclassed and lost her heavyweight judo match in 82 seconds, slammed to the mat by Puerto Rico’s Melissa Mojica. Attar isn’t expected to fare much better. The 800 was likely chosen despite her preference for long distances because she risked being lapped in anything longer.

That’s where the similarities between them end. Shahrkhani lives in Saudi Arabia, where she is coached privately by her father, an international judo referee. Attar is a Southern California girl who has made a few trips to Saudi Arabia and is not fluent in Arabic.

The IOC appears to have been instrumental in her selection after the Saudi Olympic federation couldn’t identify any female track athletes, or those it did declined to participate amid fears of retaliation. The IOC filmed and released a staged interview with Attar when the announcement was first made, and it has handled all subsequent media requests, which were repeatedly refused.

“The best case scenario would be there are a large number of women who could compete and qualify within Saudi Arabia itself, just like other countries around the world,” said Worden of Human Rights Watch. “But if you ban sports in schools, how can you possibly have qualified women when you close every door?”

Attar created a Facebook page that includes photos from a trip to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in mid-July. On it she says:

“In the 2012 London Olympics, I will be representing my country Saudi Arabia ... I know that I am not the fastest but this is so much bigger than that. We have been chosen to attend and hopefully this will allow women of Saudi Arabia to better themselves in athletics and have even more representatives in future Olympics!”

Attar’s personal best in the 800, from her days at Escondido High, is listed at 2 minutes, 40 seconds. Most women in the field have gone under 2 minutes, which means Attar could still be on the backstretch when they are finishing.

Those 30 seconds of solo effort, of 80,000 spectators cheering the lone figure in the headscarf chugging around the final turn, could be a defining moment for women’s athletics in Saudi Arabia. Or not.

Shahween, who was eliminated in the semifinal round of the men’s 1,500 meters, says he fully supports Attar. He’s also not sure how much reform her participation might invoke.

“The system in Saudi Arabia, you can’t change everything all in one day,” Shahween said. “If you want to change something, you must study what is good for Islam and what is not. It is not easy.”